Trying to give SCO Money, Part II: Success (sort of)

[Allan Rabenau]

Dear sir:
	I have in my posession a very nice bridge, in good shape.  I will
gladly sell you a license to charge tolls on this bridge if you will but
supply me with your credit card number.  An opportunity such as this
should not be missed!
(Legal disclaimer: None of the above is true; it is all in jest.)

On Mon, 2003-09-22 at 11:00, M. Drew Streib wrote:
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> A followup to my first letter, in which I tried to give SCO Money...
> 
> "Trying to Give SCO Money, Part II: Success (sort of)"
> by Drew
> 
> To recap, about a week and a half ago, I posted a short letter describing
> some woes in trying to give the Santa Cruz Operation money for a Linux
> license. After all, who wants to be in violation of copyright?
> 
> (To placate one well-placed criticism of that letter, and to correct
> a light statement of mine that my code was without copyright: Linux is
> not without copyright. It is copyrighted under the GNU General Public
> License, which is very different than the public domain.)
> 
> Since that letter, I have seen news stories that SCO has announced
> _available_ licensing plans to the general public. Hot Damn! This is my
> chance to get me some of them licenses. Roughly a week after those news
> stories, I had still not received a phone call, so today it was time to
> followup with sales.
> 
> A quick call indicated that indeed, SCO was ready to transfer me to a
> sales rep for the licenses, and in fact, the person was extremely kind
> and helpful. I had a few questions regarding my specific business needs,
> and how those would be addresed in the license, which s/he was willing
> to answer on the phone, or email to me after checking with the product
> manager/lawyers.
> 
> Here's the kicker.
> 
> Sales reps are currently authorized to take your credit card information
> and sell you a 'license' over the phone, but are apparently unable to
> actually send you a copy of said license.
> 
> It seems odd that I should be able to 'sign' something over the phone
> without having actually had theh opportunity to view it. If the license
> itself is a grant, and not the contract, then shouldn't the terms of the
> contract itself require that I at least know what I'm getting in return
> for my hard-earned (sometimes) bucks?
> 
> The sales rep was very helpful, and obviously had some notes which
> produced answers to many of my questions, but his phone assurances
> that I was in the clear (after a license purchase, of course) cannot
> be misrepresented as legal assurance. For all I know the license states
> that my grant is invalid if I spend more than an hour a day watching TV,
> or ever have eggs for breakfast (stupid examples to make a point).
> 
> To repeat, because it is important:
> 
> Can I be bound to a contract that I'm not allowed to see? If this isn't
> a contract, can I be sold a license under whose terms I am liable, but
> whose terms are hidden from me?
> 
> (I don't wish this particular sales rep harm, as s/he was actually very
> understanding of my reluctance to sign a contract I wasn't allowed to
> view. If SCO doesn't blacklist me within their sales department, maybe
> I'll even get a helpful callback.)
> 
> SCO appears to be willing to sell me an item for which my only knowledge
> is some non-binding assurances from a sales rep and a line on my credit
> card bill that says "Linux license".
> 
> I want to give SCO money (at least in this academic endeavour), but not
> this way.
> 
> It almost seems warranted to start up a lawsuit on the premise
> that SCO is taking money for misrepresented claims of what they grant
> in return (completely independent of the issue of whether or not they
> have rights to the code to begin with). I'm not a lawyer (as is often
> painfully clear in some of the things I say), but even _if_ SCO is
> 100% right on their copyright claims, this deceptive and secretive
> sales method is unethical at best.
> 
> Anyway. I'll get my answers soon, and maybe they'll even send me a copy
> of the license. I'm not holding my breath.
> 
> - -drew, probably gonna get sued by SCO eventually for this, streib
> 
> - --
> M. Drew Streib <dtype at dtype.org>
> Independent Rambler, Software/Standards/Freedom/Law -- http://dtype.org/
> 
> 
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